


Alluring Climates

by heartstone



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: . . . Kind Of, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Romance, Sexual Themes, Some Time Just Before Mairon Leaves Almarin, Writing Sex Without Actually Writing Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 19:20:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12239100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartstone/pseuds/heartstone
Summary: They walked along a labyrinth of narrow ridges in comfortable silence, trailing along the wrinkles of the earth, Arda’s lovely furrows that His fleet of massive glaciers once carved out of soil and stone; such a painfully slow process, tattooing the flesh of the earth with the stunning whirls of towering ridges and deepened gorges: her cosmic fingerprints. The crest in which they currently explored was thin as a honed blade, and on it, they were overshadowed by the massive mesa of another ridge, plateaued and towering above them with steepened sides.***Melkor shares His power with Mairon.





	Alluring Climates

Cloudy Sky

(Poem Excerpt by Charles Baudelaire)

***

You resemble at times those gorgeous horizons

That the suns sets ablaze in seasons of mist. . .

How resplendent you are, landscape drenched with rain,

Aflame with rays that fall from a cloudy sky!

 

O dangerous woman, O alluring climates!

Will I also adore your snow and your hoar-frost,

And can I draw from your implacable winter,

Pleasures keener than iron or ice?

***

They walked along a labyrinth of narrow ridges in comfortable silence, trailing along the wrinkles of the earth, Arda’s lovely furrows that His fleet of massive glaciers once carved out of soil and stone; such a painfully slow process, tattooing the flesh of the earth with the stunning whirls of towering ridges and deepened gorges: her cosmic fingerprints. The crest in which they currently explored was thin as a honed blade, and on it, they were overshadowed by the massive mesa of another ridge, plateaued and towering above them with steepened sides.

It was an ancient landmark, and Yavanna’s creations clung and sprouted from it in twisting jade and tufts of wildflower: scarlet poppies and the pale plum of hyacinth. The shadows cast deep black from the cliffs down into the narrow col and across the ridge they stood, and with its position the light of the Lamps could not reach them- it was a welcome change in the world around them, lit harshly in a mingling of gold and silver that glared down into the shadows, but which the beams of Valar-light could not penetrate. The mesa effectively shielded them, a comforting shroud of peaceful night.

And there the darkness thrived, and it collected, dense and cool as a fall breeze warning of winter. From its inky depths, nestled in dull green on the spine of rock came the twinkling of a flurry of snow, glowing softly with arcane light in mother-of-pearl. Floating in the abyssal shade the crystals were caught between falling and flying, and the ice embroidered the dark velvet of shadow as asters in the nighttime sky. There they clung to the broad shoulders of the Dark Vala, and hung about Him in a regal drape, heavy and soothing as a friendly hand.

He paused and stood, contemplative, looking down with interest at the rows of ridges and valleys and the steep texture of rock at their sides, all which culminated at the glorious centre of the mesa behind Him. Though the formation otherwise was impressive, it would have been fairly ordinary had Melkor not taken such great care and delight in its creation, and though now weathered and overrun with olvar, it remained to Him among His favorites.

Yet, His creation was called the “Marring of Arda” by those in the South, in Almarin, and the flat plain of reed-beds that surrounded the raised sill attested to this. His jet eyes narrowed as they peered out at the vast expanse of flat lands, uniform and wafting in the breeze that spoke of calmness; placidity. Wildflowers grew knotted and tall from the constant nourishment of light and gentle rain. It irked Him, and Melkor let out a soft huff at the wind as it blew lazily His hair.

But the Dark Vala was not alone, and from the dense veil of the swirling shadows and the glinting of crystalline ice, the elements of strife parted as stormclouds to the rays of Ormal, and a golden glow, steady and unfaltering came from within its depths triumphantly, broad smile and beguiling dimples.

In his hands he carried a large rock that seemed at first unremarkable, but when parted, Melkor could see it was a geode of ametrine quartz: sangria and aurorean married in its internal geometry. And He smiled too, broad and genuine, peering down at His companion and forgetting His dejected mood for the time being, turning His back to the flattened and smooth plain of Arda and down at the Maia with whom He had brought far from Almarin. Mairon exuded a peaceful calm and he held half of the cracked stone himself, and gifted the other half to Melkor, who ran His fingers over the dips and rises of the quartz, the smooth facets and sharpened edges.

“The patterning is lovely, is it not?” the Vala whispered, as if hesitant to break the silence.

The flame spirit flickered in acknowledgment, and his brilliant aura refracted from the tetrahedra and set the gemstones aglow in ultraviolet, and it glittered the ice that collected around Melkor’s form. The Maia’s smile was an easy curve, and his lips were a full rouge that He could not help but watch as he spoke:

“It is lovely, but not as the side of these cliffs, here,” and the spirit turned and gestured broadly at the giant mesa and its steep cliffs.  

Melkor inwardly shivered in pleasure: He had regretted coming here, to this monument of long ago before He had to flee to the Encircling Darkness, when Tulkas came down and crushed His mountains with His idiotic rampaging. Absentmindedly, He stroked the geode in His hand, and for the first time in a long while, really looked at the proud display of colour that long ago He had crafted onto the cliff.

The mesa was tall and many leagues wider than the surrounding ridges, which retreated into the plain. It was made of porous sandstone He had eroded to a caprock, and long it had taken Him- _centuries-_ painstakingly filtering groundwater through the stone in choice places to leave behind hematite and ochre, colcothar and manganese. It stained the rock the faded colour of rust, coral rosé and terra cotta, a summary range of cadmium, and an intense aubergine. Overtime, when Melkor had finished, it became much alike the geode in His hands, but several leagues large and infinitely more stunning.

For it was created when He was not in such somber mood, when for a time He had been joyous in celebration of the earth and its composition; a love letter to the newborn world He had long yearned for. The plateau jutted happily- proud, almost- from the surrounding land as a crown of Arda, displaying its natural wonder in glory as a peacock's tail. Melkor had delighted in its making, guiding the groundwater and its natural dyes to make a layered swirl of smooth colour, unique- the sandstone His canvas and the all the matter of the world, His.

And yet, Mairon stood there, staring at its painted side and cradled the geode loosely in his arms, a small-scale model of the landmark before them, and Melkor could see with ease the admiration, the appreciation and tenderness with which he gazed lovingly at its ordered surface, down to the last striped and marbled layer and the small geode in his hands.

The shadows around them, around the Dark Vala, unconsciously huddled closer to the flame-spirit in the same tenderness and affection, and were warmed by the nearness of his Fëa- for so little did Melkor get such blatant praise as that enwritten on the Maia’s face, and it meant much to know that there was one other who did not see His creations as scar-tissue, but designs purposeful and loving, meticulous and yet a celebration: for long had He wished for the Void to be furnished with such things as Arda.

Mairon turned to Him once more, breaking Him from His wandering thoughts and, with an excited whisper: “I do not understand how thou built such things, such magnificence; and with naught but thine own hands! What an undertaking this wouldst be, if in Almarin the Valar deigned to have such a thing! All the Maiar wouldst be summoned and o’erworked; but thou dost such things readily-- and how?”

An inward flutter at the recognition, a rippling of ice and a curve to Melkor’s thin lips that bracketed His mouth and exposed the glints of His teeth- a rarity, such a smile, growing now more common. He stepped closer to the Maia in slightly guarded vulnerability, placed His half of the geode down on the ground and cupped the hand of the Maia’s that held the other half. His hand was warm as the fire of a hearth, and the heat of his Fëa crackled and condensed, and gently He used His other hand to stroke the crystalline centre lovingly. (And if their fingers twitched over the other’s, neither of them spoke of it).

“It is not so difficult,” He began, and He caught Mairon’s eyes, that which were alight with fire, piercing and cunning. “When thou makest thine own creations in thy forge, doth not the apprentices delight in thy product, and marvel at thine own talent, and wonder to themselves how thou didst such a thing? But to thee it is. . .” And here, Melkor paused in thought, and Mairon canted his head, infernal locks falling in a charming coil over the periphery of one eye.

“It is not _simple,_ to create,” Melkor continued, “No, thou knowest this, for thou givest much thought into thine own labours. But it is _natural_ to thee, to spin matter to perfection; to order the metal and set the gems, just as it comes to me most natural to shape the earth.”

Mairon turned then, towards the rock’s side and the Ebru patterning, and his hand pulled from Melkor’s shakily, and the shadows chased the warmth immediately, as in secret craving. The Maia was deep in thought, and his arched brow furrowed like the ridges of the earth in which they stood, and with care, placed his half of the geode next to Melkor’s own and covered the hand that had been touched by the Vala with the other.

“I understand thee well,” he said after a moment, “But it is still wondrous to me, and such ways of commanding the earth are foreign, and I think I should ponder what such a craft would feel like, to guide it at such a scale.” His lilting voice was far-off, small and quiet and not even Manwë’s winds dared intrude.

Yet still, the Dark Vala stared intently at the slight Maia, gazing up once more in adoration and uncaring of the mantle of Melkor’s Fëa that now draped over his shoulders as well. There was no fear or contempt, only a desire in his fiery orbs to understand, to create such things also. And once more, the Vala felt an overwhelming tenderness, a warmth that spread like wildfire, or a welcome summer morning kissing the hoar-frost. Instinctively, and without thought, Melkor brought His pale hand to the strand that had fallen, and tucked it behind the point of one ear, and there was no hesitation from His companion, no pulling away, but a comfort- a _familiarity-_ between them that allowed such fleeting touches: a closeness He had felt with no other before.

And it melted Him.

Carefully, cautiously, as one approaches a doe, Melkor shifted, looking for any gesture or shift in emotion to stop His advance. Slowly He moved to step behind Mairon, who closed his eyes until only an eclipse of his igneous iris peered from under amber lashes, until his breathing deepened and the shadows of the Void collected in all its vastness behind the Maia, until Melkor settled- still cautious, ensuring He did not overstep some hidden boundary.

He was close, but not yet touching, and they trembled slightly, though both were too proud to admit such a thing. The Maia swayed gently, rocking in the cradle of shadows and snow fading to dew, and from within he seemed all the more resplendent, an amber flame embedded in a field of monotonous onyx. Melkor’s hands, large and starkly niveous sought Mairon’s once more, found them at the smaller Ainu’s sides, clenched tightly in unknown anticipation.

From there, in His position, Melkor could smell all that He loved of the earth in the aspects of this spirit: in his silken, curled hair the scent of fire burning low and sensual, firewood and peppercorn and saffron a low beating whip of fervency; in his flesh the fragrance of cinnamon piquant, spice and brown cane sugar thick with honey ambrosia and a coppery ichor: the complexity of arabica and cocoa. _The light at the very core of Arda: a Secret Flame._ He drifted closer, so achingly close to touch, a brush of atoms straining in their nearness, testing to see if the Maia would push Him away, would turn from His everlasting cold, His saturated emptiness, if instead he would see the potential. . .

A long pause, a held breath. A sigh of relief and a low shudder of a prayer answered.

He did not pull from Him, and the hands He now held were warm and rough from forge-work, those thin fingers, delicate and precise but strong and efficient and fit perfectly in His own. He wove their fingers together, knitted them softly, leaning into the Maia’s back and throwing caution to the wind, bringing them flush together, His soul a shroud of everlasting sable, shielding their intimacy from the harsh gaze of the Lamps. Mairon stood, leaning now against the solid marble of the fell form of the Vala, his head tipped back against the divot of His shoulder, against the curve of His neck, and Melkor’s arms encircled him around his chest, and his hands He clasped at his breastbone.

Silent and solitary they stood, but Melkor, half-lidded eyes and fear- ever-present and pushed away, unwanted- became now emboldened by Mairon’s tentative, yet eager, reception of His touch. A new feeling soared deep within Him in a rushing crescendo. It was an energy and an inspiration, similar, yet so different from that He had felt when He rose the mesa long ago. It was giddy and joyous, one that made Him wish to run and lose form, that which emblazoned His soul and sent sparks flying from His fingers, made the raven silk of His long hair that trailed loose behind Him fade substance and evanesce into wisps of shadow, made His eyes condense with trembling, carefully-nurtured happiness.

Mairon leaned more of his weight into Him, sensing the ascension of pressure and the pleasant murkiness of half-sleep. His breath hitched at the vigor, crackling with the static of the friction of matter and the attraction of ions; felt the cold around him solidify the air and he shivered, burrowing further into Melkor’s embrace, tucked himself into a pocket of time-space that hummed with ancient energy and echoed with the chord of the firmament.

And Melkor moved their entwined hands, guided His creative energy and His very Fëa through the centre of His chest as a bottomless lake branching into the deltas of His hands, in the pads of His fingertips that held now more firmly Mairon’s own. And when Melkor guided the first of His dense and vast power through the Maia’s own flesh and soul as a holy medium, the smaller spirit gasped and opened his eyes with a sharp arch of his back and the sudden influx of icy ecstasy, his face one of euphoria.

Before them the rocky plateau was ascending, rising higher and higher, its upward path slow and steady and laborious. And Mairon saw it followed the movement of Melkor’s hands which held onto his own also, and between them and the earth, a brilliance of colour and song moving in tandem. He guided their upturned palms up and up, and the rocky crest moved with them, and the threads of gold and black shimmered with the glory of the painted rock. And when Melkor slowly pushed their hands together, meeting and twisting at the top, the massive rock formation before them was molded so rather than a flat sill the mesa was no longer, and instead it formed a gloriously marbled peak, that which was erected upwards in growing proudness.

And Mairon held his breath behind pursed lips, and felt within himself the heady power of Melkor and His Discord, and he swayed with the Vala as He transferred His energy- His very essence- through the small, trembling Maia. He shared with him His power, that electricity that formed writhing rivers in his Fëa and burst with intoxicating, molten rapture and absolute, eternal cold.

With each snapping or graceful movement of their hands and fingers, the earth changed and shifted gladly to their orogenic movements, and the two on the ridge below the ever-climbing mountain seemed in a languorous dance, a sensual swirl of stone and ice crystal that began to incoronate the thrusted fault at it pierced the thickening clouds in the sky, swollen with rain. Cumulonimbus, dark and purring with thunder, broken only by lightening felt as his soul felt, alight with the sensations of Melkor’s throbbing glory.

The Maia quivered in His arms from the intensity of His power, exhilarated at the ease of His movements and the vision of the snowstorm that fell from the clouds or the mountain that grew high and proud in a sweeping upward curve, balanced by the buoyancy force of great volume, gliding smoothly downwards in the parting entrance of the thickening mantle: of the earth, ripped open to its core and re-joined. And the pressure around them mounted with the growing friction of the earth and the weather whipped passionately around the tip of the mountain.

And with a brilliant flash of lightning, and with a give in Arda’s structure, the upfold of the earth and its downfold gave way at its convergent plates, and the mountain, glorious and veined with painted rock and mineral, spread in a chasm of dripping magma and the nucleus of the earth was exposed to the shadows, and the thickened fold of the mountain opened wide with the electric pressure of the storm and the inevitable give of steadily-rising pressure that separated the anticlines and synclines.

And Mekor saw that Mairon did not falter or cower in the grand display of His will that worked open the earth, firm but gentle. Instead the Maia’s eyes and his vessels became luminous with his own spirit, alight in golden excitement in response to Melkor’s. The wind kicked up around them and brought with them the thick white flakes of snow and with His cheek pressed to the Maia’s temple, cuddled close, they were assailed by the fat droplets of half-frozen sleet, the water conflicted by the cold of the top of the mountain and the subterranean heat of the cratered earth in which the stone sunk slowly into with a whimper. And the mountain, once a mesa painted with the elements, glowed a deep red from the heat it slipped smoothly into, and Melkor reeled with the pleasure and bliss as Mairon’s spirit overtook the architecture of His thrust belt torn asunder.

The mountain melted with the sudden influx of the Maia’s energy, which had now grown in confidence at the urging of Melkor’s, and the rock dripped like liquid down into the crust of Arda, which quivered with their power and the antithesis of their nature. Fire and ice swirled and clashed playfully in joy and the natural world around them, confused, changed rapidly between forms of liquid and solid and gas until it was a dense monolith, an inversion of force and stuttering staccato, crust and lithosphere groaning with the strain until Melkor held onto Mairon as much as the Maia held onto Him, hands still guiding the earth’s movements.

Wind and rain and snow and the mightiest of condensed storms birthed from the dense billowing of steam-cloud until it fell heady onto the earth and into the igneous intrusion of the mountain engulfed by the viscous upper mantle, and rose back up with a hot hiss as gas, only to fall again. The stone melted and matter rode forcefully, shifting and flexing and contracting with their power until both figures held their breath as the earth finally gave way in a climactic finale of a large earthquake that shook Arda for hundreds of leagues, and the mountain was swallowed completely in a sputtering spray of magma and a trembling sibilate of ice, and Melkor disconnected their interwoven hands as the Maia fell from exhaustion, their Fëar sealed in their physical bodies from further planetary courtship.

Mairon, breath heavy, damp with rain and sweat and tears and their hands bloodied from the puncturing press of their nails, collapsed in His arms and spasmed intermittently one last time in the delight of pulsing orogenesis and liberating destruction. Melkor sat aside him, equally shook, cradling the Maia as something most precious, tucking him close and securing him from the harsh light that now exposed them with the mesa gone. His shadows collected and whirled around them, and His pale, trembling fingers stroked Mairon’s hair that was still alight with embers despite its wetness, caressed the skin that was feverish silk.

He waited until the manifestation of Mairon’s Fëa, the outwards projection of gold, faded. And the Maia’s own eyes opened from their heavy languor to peer up at the Vala with the look of tired, blissful exhaustion. Satiated, the low-burning coil cooling.

And the sight of him, so relaxed and with the coveted knowledge within the Vala that He had not been rejected from touch, from sharing with the lesser Ainu His very soul, the power of Discord: that He had been completely and blindly _trusted. . ._ the Dark Foe of the World, Bane of the Valar, and Chaos Himself embodied in flesh and bone laughed, and His laugh was of the earth, of its tumult and its fits. And there was a light sound with Him, of bells and harps interwoven- of Mairon’s breathless giggle, the sound of ordered isostasy and passionate coupling. And down, in the crater where the mesa and the soaring mountain once was, painted and beautiful, a low-hanging haze of colour and a cooling lava-flow hardened in a conflagration of colour in the comfort of crystal and ice.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, the innuendos in this one got a little out of hand (and I'm unsure if this should be mature or not), but I'd still love to know what you think! :)  
> Edit: Forgot to mention that the mesa Melkor made is supposed to look like the Maria Island Painted Cliffs.   
> ***


End file.
